In my last post, I said I would discuss some of the key elements of Branding. Here they are, in order:

First, the Customer.

In many cases, the customer is the brand. That is, when you are designing your product, it should be with a specific target customer in mind. What unfulfilled need do they have? What is important to them? Why would they choose your product or service over another?

In a perfect world, these and other questions should be answered before any product development is done. Your product, your brand should be designed around your intended customer, as much as possible.

Of course, we don’t live in a perfect world, and many of us are dealing with established brands and changing times. But we can still ask these questions to determine how well our brand fits, and if necessary, gradually make adjustments.

The Promise

Once you have established who the customer is and what they want or need, next you decide what promise you are making to them. How will you fulfill those unfulfilled needs? More importantly, how will you do it better – or differently – than your competitors?

This is the underlying benefit your product offers. It might be better prices or better service, something that enhances their lifestyles or makes them happier. Whatever it is, it should be something that you can deliver consistently and that your competitors cannot.

The Product

Now you can start designing your product. Your product is the thing that delivers on the promise, and it must do so consistently and reliably. Nothing can damage a brand like broken brand promises. For evidence of this, look no further than Toyota. Quality and reliability is their brand promise, and it was broken. It will take a lot of work to repair the Toyota brand.

The Character

Finally, this is where the designers, copywriters, PR executives and others commonly associated with branding come in. It may seem trivial compared to the elements I’ve described, but giving your brand a personality is important. It can give customers a reason to associate with your brand, or it can be what attracts people to your brand in the first place. Regardless, it should be carefully crafted and managed.

EcoHome Magazine’s EcoWatch blog recently had a good post about the Top Three Marketing Mistakes of Green Businesses. It’s a helpful reminder with some good info.

Here’s an excerpt:

Since sustainability is a relatively new concept for the general public, it is defined in a multitude of ways. The mistake that green builders make is not communicating what green means to their company.

Indeed. If you’re going to market yourself as green, be sure you are honest and transparent about what that means. You don’t have to be perfect. Nobody is. But people will give you credit for trying.

And remember, don’t lose sight of your true colors, whether that’s green or something else.

Several marketing pundits have been writing lately about the death of branding. Geoffrey James of the Sales Machine blog at BNet declared Branding to be dead and that the only thing that mattered was product quality.

It seems as though Mr. James is like John Cleese in this excerpt of “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” wanting to be rid of Old Man Branding and get on with his life.

Problem is, Branding is “not quite dead.” In fact it’s getting better. So we would be wise not to club it on the head and throw it on the cart.

To be sure, Branding is vastly different than it used to be. Quality and innovation are more important than ever. But branding still plays an important role in the success of a product (or service, etc.).

First, it helps to define branding. Some say it’s little more than the logos, jingles and ads. I agree that too much emphasis is often placed on those things, but I think branding is much more.

Your brand is the foundation on which the customer-facing portion of your company is built. It is what people – customers, employees, vendors, the community – thinks when they hear your name or see your logo. It is what sets you apart from your competitors.

How you build and nurture that brand is, of course, a huge issue. People much smarter than I have debated this for decades, and continue to do so.

Nevertheless, I’ll throw my hat in the ring. Watch this space for a discussion of the key elements of Branding. And by all means, join the conversation.

I was listening to a local radio talk show the other day when the host was talking about a school board considering banning teachers from becoming “friends” with students on Facebook.

The issue was that this kind of thing could lead to inappropriate or worse interactions between students and teachers. Furthermore, the host was lamenting the fact that people have not considered the ramifications of putting all their personal information on sites like Facebook. After all, the Internet is forever.

All of those things are true. Kids can and have gotten into trouble by posting too much on Facebook. And I also agree that people may not yet fully understand how the social Web will affect them down the road.

But I have two problems with the idea of a blanket rule banning Facebook relationships between students and teachers.

The first is that it assumes teachers are not responsible adults, capable of making decisions about when to and not to “friend” their students on Facebook. I am troubled by individual judgement and responsibility continually being usurped by rules. But that’s another discussion.

The other problem I have is the mentality of resisting (futilely, I might add) the advance of technology and the social Web instead of embracing it. Facebook and the rest are here, for better or worse. We might as well embrace it and use it to our advantage.

There are some really innovative teachers out there. Why not give them all the tools they want to come up with new ways to teach the next generation and engage them?

The thing I’ve noticed about sites like Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and others is their potential in business, education, culture and more is nearly boundless. But you don’t know what the possibilities are unless you dive in, embrace technology and start using it. New ideas will present themselves to those who look for them.

But the larger issue is that these kids are growing up in a world we never could have imagined. We do them a disservice by pretending it doesn’t exist.

If you’re looking for another blog post of most- and least-favorite Super Bowl ads, you won’t find it here. Though I will say that anything with Betty White is a winner in my book.

Super Bowl ads have become a joke, and not in a good way. The stories are about the ads themselves, not the products they’re trying to sell, or the brands they’re representing. The big game is more of a showcase for ad agencies, a contest to see who can make the ad of the game. Creativity for creativity’s sake.

Good advertising should allow the brand message to resonate with the target audience. It should connect with the consumer and create some spark of awareness about the key benefit of the product for sale.

Instead, Super Bowl ads, for the most part, are just trying to out-do one another to get laughs, often at the expense of the brand. Although the Super Bowl still delivers a great value in terms of the audience size, I have to believe that the $3 million plus production costs of the ad could be much better spent.

The problem, of course, is advertising in general doesn’t work like it used to. People are skeptical, and don’t like having messages shoved in their faces when they’re trying to enjoy a game or a TV show. Today’s marketers have to be smarter than that.

There are ways to stand out in the Super Bowl ad race, and one of those ways is to have your ad rejected. GoDaddy.com became a master of this tactic. Make your ad too controversial so as to be rejected by the network. Then issue a news release about your ad being rejected. People will jump on YouTube immediately to see what all the fuss is about. This year, gay dating site ManCrunch.com used this tactic perfectly.

Recognizing that most people reading this blog are not in a position to buy ad space during the Super Bowl, what is the lesson here? It’s simply this: resist blowing big chunks of your market on making a big splash. You will be much better served engaging in far cheaper marketing tactics that engage your customers and build loyalty and community around your brand.